MCGILL, Ch.
On bill for divorce.
Petition for divorce by one Ferrari against his wife. Denied.
Louis Starr, for complainant.
MCGILL, Ch. The husband and wife lived together until July 1, 1880, when he failed in business. Then the wife went to Heilburn, taking their daughter, and leaving her husband with their sons at Zuffenhausen. The husband followed to Heilburn, but could not get work there, and, leaving his wife, went to Goelietz. While he was at Goelietz his wife wrote to him that she was going to Karlsruhe. Here they lost each other. The husband states that his wife wrote to him from Karlsruhe not to come to her unless he could furnish money enough to start a business, but he does not say that he asked her to return to him. He does not produce her letter in which she forbids him to come to her, and his statements as to its contents are not corroborated. The divorce here sought will not be granted upon his uncorroborated statements. I fail to find anything in the proofs to show that she met Heim after she parted from her husband. Her letter of March, 1882, from New York to her sons, indicates that she was then in America, and that she believed her husband and children were yet in Germany. In that letter she speaks of her poverty and hard work, and the necessity which compels her to look out for herself; and she also says: "In January I wrote you a letter. I wrote another letter at the same time. I received an answer for the last in three weeks, so I supposed you received the first. Why I get not answer? Are you not willing to write, or have you not permission for it? * * * Now, again, if I get not a letter of you, this will be the last I write. If you write so it is use, then all will be good. I will work and save, and you can find any time a home; but if you hide yourself from me, I wait until you come. I give all things in the hand of the Lord. His will may be fulfilled." It appears to me that necessity separated this husband and wife, and that the husband at least accepted the separation as a necessity. It may be possible that the wife did not want him to come to her until he could support her and his family; but that fact did not absolve him from his duty to find her, and ask her to return. Her letter shows that she was not hiding away from him, and at the same time it intimates that some power prevents her son from writing to her, and that she suspects that he may be hiding away from her. I do not find proof of willful and obstinate desertion. The wife has had only constructive notice of this suit, and for that reason alone, if for no other, the proofs should most clearly and conclusively establish a desertion within the statute. I will deny the divorce.